©Nitin Vikar 📷
As mentioned, this spring semester, I had the incredible opportunity to work with NatuR&D as part of my community-engaged learning field project in my Sustainable Cities course! I am working with two other amazing classmates, Lisa Angstadt and Sarah Swan, as well as the Innovative Lead of NatuR&D, Anne-Marie who is the talented visionary of NatuR&D and speaks about the necessity of protecting the relationship between personal and planetary health. NatuR&D is a Victoria-based organization that connects with individuals from all over the world on the topic of biomimicry. A major component of NatuR&D’s philosophy is to look to Nature’s billions of years of design experience to solve today’s problems in a process called biomimicry.
With an emphasis on resilient urban systems, NatuR&D has a lot to offer in terms of networks and information but as a new company is struggling to establish an online presence that will further the reach of the work. Anne-Marie is extremely dedicated to building and expanding this company and its message and so the team and I wanted to help increase engagement. Growing up in the social media era, the team and I wanted to offer some nuance and time to NatuR&D’s social media marketing, primarily on Instagram and to showcase the incredible team that works for NatuR&D. We did this by conducting interviews with 6 members of the team and then publishing our findings on Instagram! Going into April with this project, we hope to continue supporting Anne-Marie and NatuR&D through their social media by publishing about a RUSH initiative ongoing with the Community Mapping course, also held at UVic.